


the foxes hunt the hounds tonight

by capra



Series: young volcanoes [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Communication, Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Mariah is equal parts thirsty and concerned, Multi, Nathan is a big softie, Nathan is gorgeous, Nathan is just a whole mood, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Romain is equal parts sleepy and confidently unworried, gratuitous depictions of Nathan, this is a whole ass 13k of fluff and cuddles and emotional support
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 04:13:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17501345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/pseuds/capra
Summary: “Nate,” Romain says, and Nate jerks to attention. He opens his eyes, finds Romain’s gaze, holds it. “I’m sorry. We should have talked. Not make smooching and humping do the talking for us. --What? What did I say?”





	the foxes hunt the hounds tonight

**Author's Note:**

> i'm increasingly falling in love with these three silly idiots and their fromance.
> 
> this is set after, and lovingly inspired by, the flood of christmas and new years' instagram stories from all three of them, in which they gave very little reason to believe that any moment of free time they've had, during the time Nate's on winter break from Yale, was not spent attached at the hips.
> 
> As a blanket disclaimer: any and all non-monogamy depicted in my stories is entered into consensually by all partners and metamours, unless explicitly noted in the tags or description of the fic.
> 
> This story is based on a narrow range of cherrypicked personality qualities culled from my personal and very biased interpretation of the publically available personas of real human beings who are, I am quite certain, not similar at all to how they're depicted here.
> 
> In short, it's complete fiction.

“Eugh. I’m. Oh, god, I’m filthy.” 

Mariah is laughing as she gathers her hands under her chest, pushes against the mattress. Trying to get up, or at least onto her hands and knees. She gets halfway up before her elbow buckles, and she flops sideways, landing shoulder blade and head on the bulk of Romain’s chest, under his arm. He folds it down from its broad splay across the pillows, til his fingers can tickle the slope of her ribcage under her breast; til she squeals and whacks him, backhand across his forearm, as if that’ll stop him.

“You stay and cuddle,” Romain says, and his fingers flatten out, palm broad and possessive and spanning the center third of her ribcage under her sternum. Her breath catches, a slow snag, and she arches her spine between the anchor points of her shoulder on his chest and her ass on the bed beside his hip. Stretching til her spine just about pops, breasts leading the way toward the ceiling, she holds the stretch until the tension of it crawls down into her toes, into her fingernails. Breaking the stretch, thumping back down against Romain and the bed, feels very nearly as good as the orgasm that’s still lingering, making her scalp shiver with its soft after-waves. She groans, savoring it.

“Okay, I stay and cuddle,” she agrees, and hums. The sun coming in the floor-to-ceiling windows to the right of the bed is warm and clear, a cosy bright midmorning yellow rather than the overwhelming hot orange-yellow of midday, and closing her eyes into it makes even the darkness behind their lids rosy and warm.

“Mmmmh, Nate, you still there?” She lifts her left arm, squirming it free of Romain’s lazy weight, and pats around on the emptier side of the bed. Pillow, pillow, mattress, scrunched sheet, mattress, pillow,  _ palm.  _

He closes his hand around hers, palm to palm, thumb brushing gently over the backs of her knuckles. “I’m here,” Nathan says, and it’s a soft smile wrapped up in two syllables. How he  _ does _ that, Mariah thinks, pours a whole sentence of implied emotional explanation into the inflection of two spoken words. She closes her hand tighter around his, squeezing, and against her ribcage, Romain’s palm tightens its grip too. Hands’ pressure following the pressure in their chests, a tight clench of  _ protect-love-admire-uplift-cleave to him _ .

“Come down here and cuddle us,” Mariah says, instead of  _ I love you so much, Nathan Wei Chen, and you aren’t ready to believe me yet but it’s true. _ She tugs on his hand to tow him closer, and he laughs, the dusty half-formed one that she knows makes Romain’s heart kick in his chest every time he hears it. And always has, since before any of them knew how to translate the particular morse code of their hearts.

Mariah picks up her head, or tries to. The motion tugs her hair where it’s pinned under her, against Romain’s flank, and she yelps. Romain brushes it free with two fingers of his right hand, sweeps it over her shoulder, strokes that touch over her shoulder down to her elbow on the way back to lassitude. She tries again, this time lifts her head without trouble, and once she’s out of the sunbeam, opens her eyes. 

Nathan’s squarely in the beam now, squinting against it a little, and she lifts her free right hand to shade the light from his eyes. He smiles, crooked, and scoots closer. He’s sitting up, cross-legged, and as he scoots he folds his left knee up to his chest, hugs it with that arm. His thumb strokes the back of her hand, sweeping back and forth, and his eyes are so, so brown as he looks at her, looks at them both - naked and sated and sprawled together. There’s a wonder in his eyes, a measure of disbelief, that thrills Mariah as much as it pains her.

Romain’s head is on the pillows at the head end of the bed which, at six feet tall  _ before _ he stretches out, is the only way he fits on the bed. Even then it’s a near thing, and when they're in hotel rooms, the first thing they do is ruin the staff’s tidy work just to tug the bedding loose so that his big feet will fit, hanging down over the edge. Here, in their own bedroom, it’s a little easier, and the way Romain just  _ melts _ into their extra-long mattress (and bedframe, and sheets) makes all the frustration of acquiring it worthwhile. Mariah rolls her head back, looking up toward him; she sees his chin, stubble, the arcing slope of his neck and throat up to the lobe of his ear. He’s not asleep, but only barely; a nap after orgasm is a familiar constant with him. All the more of late, as he’s been worked twice as hard when they play.

Mariah looks back to Nathan, who’s watching her, quiet, patient. There’s no such thing as awkward silence between the three of them, and for Mariah, whose mind runs fast, so fast, on so many tracks at once, it’s reassuring that Nathan will wait out her distraction, her idly wandering thoughts - and moreover, barely consider the waiting a chore.

“Snuuuuuggle us,” she coaxes again, tugging. Nathan scoots closer still, unfolding one leg, and extends it out to lay alongside the four of theirs. He bends close, brushes Mariah’s hair back with careful, precise touches. She watches his fingers, the palm of his hand passing back and forth in her field of vision, and lets her eyes slide closed. He’s near enough, in the way he wants to be, and she’s sleepy. A nap sounds lovely.

*

  
She wakes to the sound of guitar. Soft, barely plucked. Mariah cracks one eye open, then the next. The sunbeam has crawled up the wall, pressing itself to the ceiling and lighting up every pit and peak of the acoustic spackle finish like toasted peaks of lemon meringue cream. But the languid, indolent warmth of the day hasn’t budged, though the hour has crept its way ever onward. Romain’s steady, shallow breaths of sleep resonate behind her now, instead of under her, and Mariah takes stock of her own comfortable position, a crescent curled against Romain’s side, covered gently by the cotton sheet of the bed, recovered from the floor. She should have woken up sore and a little chilled, given the completely thoughtless position she was in as she drifted off, but…

There’s that tight clench in her chest again. Mariah sits up, silent but for the soft shuffle of cloth falling free of her shoulders as she does, and twists around, following the sound of the guitar.

Nathan’s sitting in Romain’s desk chair, one leg crossed over the other knee, guitar propped lovingly across this half-lap. He’s wearing boxers and glasses and nothing else, and the sunlight flares across the cut at the edge of his glasses lens as he leans forward, lost in concentration.

He’s making very little noise - if she was a heavier sleeper, Mariah doubts it would have woken her. It sure didn’t budge Romain. Rather than strumming, Nate’s only just barely touching the strings across the guitar’s middle, tapping out the meter with the careless ease of long practice. His concentration is held in his left hand, nearly at the top of the guitar’s neck, where his knuckles bend sharp and tight and his fingertips press the strings in a quick-stepping dance. His hand seems to pounce on the neck of the guitar, moving from one combination to the next and again to another. Then the pattern repeats. He’s learning a new piece, she sees.

His head’s bent down, and from this angle the broad frame of his glasses obscures his eyes, but Mariah can imagine the expression in them right now. His hair is pushed back messily to the left side, where it will stick - but look ridiculous, as it does now - if you tangle the curls just right. His head turns, following the flick of his gaze - from his phone screen to the guitar’s fretboard and back again. His mouth’s doing that pressed diagonal that looks so very silly to Mariah and Romain, and which she’s been told - somehow, though she can’t figure out  _ how _ \- looks intimidating as all hell to his competition.

He looks radiant.

“Nathan,” she breathes, and the word only splinters a little, at the front end, because her mouth’s all sticky from sleep. He looks up, yanked from his little biosphere of music and quiet light and moderate proximity, and a flash of disoriented confusion is still fading out of his eyes as they find hers. He concentrates  _ so  _ hard, she thinks, and the distance between them seems to yawn wide for two long, aching moments. This is why he’s World Champion and she’s -- well, she’s struggling for triple-triple combos. This is why he’s a Yalie and she’s--

“Yo,” she hears, and registers that it’s  _ again _ . “Mariah, helloooo.”  A smile - his big one - breaks across his face like clouds parting when she looks at him, focuses her eyes and her concentration and pulls her out of the spiralling path on which her mind had so quickly flown away.

“Are you sleep talking?” He’s putting the guitar down, setting it carefully against the desk, its neck held up by the intersection of desk and the back of the chair. He smiles at her in each glance up. “You just sat up and said  _ Nathan _ and the only time you’ve ever called me that was when we thought I killed Gizmo.”

“We did not think that,” Mariah tsks, and she busies herself with combing her hair back from her face, looking for a hair elastic. There’s none on her wrist and she sticks out her bottom lip, looking around. “ _ You _ thought you killed Gizmo, and we thought you were just panicking.”

Nathan pulls one off of his own wrist and holds it out for her. “As is appropriate for the babysitter who lost his charge after like... two hours. I’m serious!” he protests, over Mariah’s sniggering.

“He’s a  _ rabbit _ , he finds corners to sit in. We told you he would.”

“And he did not let me know before he went on walkabout. I was very worried. He didn’t even take his phone.” Nathan sits down on the bed beside her, sitting on one foot, dangling the other over the edge. “His Bunny Phone.”

“Bunny phone?”

“Yes. He has- uhh, he has Sprint. Cause he runs.” Nate’s grin is stupid, and so is the little laughing snort Mariah makes.

“No, that wasn’t a laugh. I did not just laugh at your horrible joke,” she informs him, wagging a finger in his face.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Hey,” Mariah says, because smug Nathan is more attractive than she’s got endurance for right now, and also she’s genuinely curious, “what song were you working on? Looked like you were learning a new one.”

Nathan laughs, rakes his hand up into his hair. It dislodges the curl linkage, and the whole mess falls down into his eyes. It’s getting long. He grins, wide enough that she can see his canines. “I haven’t gotten it figured out yet,” he says, and he sounds embarrassed.

“Okay, then just tell me,” she presses, leaning on his shoulder. Sitting like this, her chest brushes his upper arm, and she tucks away the smile at the way that it makes him shiver. He’s still so new to this, somehow still newer than they are now, months along. She supposes it’s because he’s younger - just enough that he doesn’t have the range of experience they do. It’s sweet, and a hell of an ego boost, to be able to affect him so much, so easily. Usually, she doesn’t take advantage of that, because it’s an uncomfortable reminder. But sometimes.

“Tell you? Mmh.” But Nathan begins to hum the melody, and then murmur lyrics to follow it. Mariah thinks she can almost hear where Nathan would weave in the guitar’s voice to match.

_ Whoa oh ah hah ah ah ah huh  _ _  
_ _ Whoa oh ah hah _

_ Funky lady why you dissin' on me?  _ __  
_ Funky lady in your Continental Grand Prix  _ _  
_ __ Sexy brothers let the funky lady dance 

He looks over, seeking her gaze. He’s self conscious suddenly - of the lyrics? Of the fact that she’s naked, he’s nearly so? She sits up, so they’re levelly facing each other. The last line of the stanza is a murmur from his lips that loses its melody halfway through.

_  
_ _ Sexy brothers watch the funky lady... dance dance dance. _

“You’ll do more than watch next time,” Mariah says, “Okay?”

He leans forward - rocking forward like he’s jolting from blades onto picks, a lurch that’s as much about momentum as intention. “Okay.” His mouth is so, so tender against her own.

“Oh,” she sighs, tipping backwards out of the kiss. Her hand pats down to the bed behind her, bracing them. Nathan’s left hand reaches out to do the same, finding not the mattress but Romain’s thigh. Nathan jumps, startling himself as much as Mariah, and they topple onto the bed. They land on top of each other, and under each other, in about equal parts, and it’s a graceless mess of elbows and shins until they get themselves untangled. Mariah’s not bothered by the clumsiness, but Nathan’s gone peach across his ears and the middle of his cheeks, blushing with embarrassment. Mariah taps his jaw with one finger, drawing his attention, and then draws him back down to kiss her with her hand on his nape.

“None of that,” she murmurs, and he exhales into her mouth, and tries to  _ say _ something, and she smothers it with a laughing kiss. He’s still pretty awkwardly braced over her - both hands on the mattress, shoulder blades standing at sharp attention above as he lets his head hang down, plying his lips against hers with a delicate touch. But there’s a...a pressure, Mariah senses, bitten down far in the back of his carefully deliberate mouth. She pushes forward with her tongue, hunting for it, determined to shake it loose.

Like unweaving a complex knot, one part comes free at a time, leaving clues for the next. Mariah bites his lower lip, earns a shudder and a sigh. She ducks out of the kiss, guiding his mouth to her neck, and he applies a chain of kisses there, so beautifully deliberate that they feel like a fine necklace. Her mouth at his ear is less chaste, and she learns that sucking on Nathan’s earlobe will make his elbows buckle. She groans, satisfied, when this brings him thumping down on top of her, and he buries his face in the crook of her neck and bites his groan into tiny frustrated pieces against her skin.

“‘Riah,” he says, pressing the consonants against her jawline, and she rolls her body up, gratified by the way Nathan shudders as their skin slides together.

“Mmm?”

“I... I had an idea,” he says, and turns his face to press the bridge of his nose against her jawline, nosing his way under her chin. She tips her head up as requested, sighing into it, biting her lower lip when his lips pluck at the strings of her neck and her breasts slide with warm pressure against the slope of his chest.

“Mnnhnn?” She’s aware she could be more coherent, but this suffices.

“I wasn’t sure about it, though, I wanted to ask you if you’d. If Romain would--” Nathan goes rigid and pulls back, consternation furrowing his brow. His eyes are doing that broad anxious expression she dislikes seeing in them, but they’re darker than before, even as the sunlight stripes his face crossways.

“I mean, I don’t mean that, I mean obviously it’s - up to you, I just meant, I mean, he’s--”

Mariah sits up, pushing Nathan back til he’s sitting too. He’s straddling one of her legs, foot folded out for balance. She watches his face, watches him tracking her expression quickly, anxiously, looking for rejection or anger or offense. He knows her better than this, she knows he does, and  _ he _ knows he does, too, when he’s not trying not to panic. She rakes her hands into his hair, combs it back from his face, and lets her thumb linger on his cheekbone as it goes past.

“Nate, I get it. It’s cool.” His brows knit together, tugged upward in the middle, and she knows her expression is soft and sympathetic and hopefully doesn’t look alarming to him, though she’s afraid it might, because amused chagrin can often play condescension’s twin.

“You’re my boyfriend now, okay? You don’t have to ask Romain and me if we mind.” Her voice is soft, gentle. She means it to be reassuring. Instead, the words strike the space between them like flint meeting steel. Nathan inhales. Mariah was looking into his eyes for connection, for care, for reassurance. So she sees the moment his pupils dilate, watches his eyes flood black. She pulls back from that close focus, yanks her attention back to his whole face, his expression, his posture, to find the source of the heat that’s just pulled the air from her lungs.

Oh.  _ Oh _ . Nathan’s looking at her with…

_ No, he’d never look at a panel of judges like this, _ she thinks, distantly, and swallows. Nathan doesn’t look  _ at _ judges, he looks  _ through  _ them. His focus is for them all and for none of them, all at the same time. If anything, it’s just him and his program, locking gazes, dancing together til the four minutes are up. 

But this…

_ This is for me _ . Mariah’s skin feels hot, and she suddenly remembers she’s very naked. They’ve been undressed around each other before. Skinny-dipping in the pool just because it’s a private pool and they  _ can _ . Or changing quickly, not-quite-late for morning practice at the rink after sleeping in after staying up, nudging past each other to get to the bathroom sink with bleary steps and toothbrushes squirreled into their cheeks.

This isn’t that. This is naked, this is  _ nude _ , and her breath catches as Nathan looks her over, face to lips to collarbones all the way down all the curves to where she melts into the bedsheets at her waist, and then back up again.

“You never said it before,” Nathan says, licking his lips between the  _ you _ and  _ never _ , a physical hesitation that says he isn’t sure he can believe that she’s said it now, but if she wants to take it back she’ll have to pry it out of his teeth. Mariah thinks back, raking all their conversations through her head, and her stomach drops.

“Oh my god,” she says, eyes going wide, heart tying itself in a knot. This whole time - this  _ whole time _ \- even after Nate’s breakdown, their phone call, all the promises about Christmas and New Years’ that they made - and fulfilled! - and yet they’ve still never… That should be impossible. It's impossible, right?

Nathan’s reaching for her, and it looks like he’s going to hug her? Comfort her? But Mariah doesn’t need comfort, she’s not upset for her own sake, and with a swift backhand to Romain’s thigh, she begins shaking him awake.

“Romain, Romaaaaain, love, wake up, wake up, I think we fucked up,” Mariah singsongs, and when Nathan leans in again, this time confused, she puts a hand out, catching him gently across the collarbones, and holds him at arm’s length. She does not look at the contrast of his toffee skin beneath her pale fingers, especially caught as it is in the beam of sunlight that’s striped across all three of them.

“ _ Chouette? _ ” Romain wakes up slowly, fuzzyheaded, and Mariah’s heart swoops in her chest because how,  _ how _ , is he so beautiful? “ _ Qu’est que ce que… _ ”

“ _ C'est Nate. Anglais, s'il te plaît? _ ”  Nathan makes a choked noise beside her, his chest trembling once in her palm. She smiles, and remembers that he hasn’t heard her speak French very much, because he hasn’t heard  _ Romain _ speak French very much.

So, so new. Every new discovery feels thrilling.

Meanwhile, Romain’s pushing himself upright, yawning and stretching til his jaw cracks, muttering to himself the whole while. It’s rather like watching a mountain troll wake up, Mariah thinks, but the  _ cutest _ mountain troll she’s ever seen.  _ “Bon, super. Eugh. Quand j'me suis endormi putain...” _

“Give him a minute,” she tells Nathan. “But in the meantime, cuddles.”

Mariah pushes Nathan back, pressing him flat onto his back, crawling forward over him with a grin that scrunches up her nose. Her hair falls forward, brushing his face, and she tucks it behind her ear. The ends brush his shoulder, and he shivers away from the touch - it tickles. But he doesn't pull away from her gaze, and they just stare into each other's eyes, taking in the small movements, the nuances. Mariah slowly relaxes down onto him, and as she does she's draping more and more of her weight onto him, like some kind of therapy blanket full of elbows. It seems to be working. It's at least keeping his mind on pause while they wait.  

At some point, hitting some limit she can't define or describe, Nathan wriggles his right arm free. He reaches up above his head, reaching for the headboard. It's too far, so his hand keeps patting around, finding first the pillow, and then, Romain’s hand, which closes on his own.

“Scissor Sister?” Romain asks, and his voice is somewhat smoother, somewhat less scratchy from sleep. “You were playing it.”

“You know Scissor Sisters?” Nathan responds, rolling his head to look up and to the side, til he can find Romain’s face and grin at him. “You’re an international man of mystery. Always surprising.”

“Sorry I woke you, though,” he adds, but Romain shakes his head and squints a smile at him. He yawns again, blinks, takes in the picture in front of him.

“Oouf. I am glad you woke me,” he says. His voice is a warm drawl and it sends a shiver up Mariah’s back even before his palm follows, tracing her spine from the small of her back to her shoulder. She closes her eyes, rolling her body into the touch, until Romain gathers her hair up and pushes it over her right shoulder.

“It was blocking the view,” he explains. His grin is all trouble, all savor.  “Continue, please.”

Mariah laughs as Nathan blushes, a dark rosy peach that shows up even more vividly across his chest, where the California sun hasn’t darkened his skin from tawny to toffee.

“Romain,” she says, dropping her weight intentionally, so her weight presses the air out of Nathan with a whoof, “Noo, it wasn’t like that.”

“It was about to be,” Nathan contributes, and shares a goofy eyebrow waggle with Romain.

“Well, okay, yes, but-- Look, Romain, we haven’t  _ said it _ to him yet! He said we haven’t yet and  _ obviously _ that needs to be fixed  _ immediately _ .”

“It?”

“What he is to us,” Mariah prompts, beaming at Romain. He blinks, and she holds back a sigh. Maybe--?   
  
“Nearby?” Romain tries. Mariah flops forward, her forehead thumping onto Nathan’s breastbone. He exhales in a gust, startled.

“Noooo,” grumbles Mariah, exasperated. She rolls her head to the side, glaring at Romain.

“You are so useless. Romain, Nathan is our  _ boyfriend. _ Right? But we forgot to say it.”

“Nathan, but - of course you are.” Romain’s brow furrows, and the  _ love _ in his eyes as he looks at Nathan is so thick Mariah can almost taste it. But under her ear pressed to Nathan’s chest, she can hear his heartbeat speeding up.

“You’d--we’d--” Nathan stops as soon as he starts. He swallows - more of a gulp - and Mariah presses down with her whole body, close against him, holding him tight. He shivers - and then a certain tension just about  _ flops  _ out of him and he exhales.

“You...never  _ said it _ . I mean, I guessed,  _ I  _ thought it, and Adam said it a bunch, but - and then I came home and we've… we've--” 

He breaks off, blushing darkly, and Mariah rolls her entire body against him to try to break the tension, make him smile. This lost, hesitant face isn't one she likes to see from him. But he doesn't react. She'd think he's ignoring her attempt entirely, except for the way he grits his teeth, closes his eyes, exhales. Steeling himself. And when he continues it's with more confidence, more resolve. 

“This two weeks has been amazing. But I started, I mean, um, I kept expecting, you know, it to just naturally kinda come up. Not like a big deal, just, that someone would say it. Sometime. And then… not. So-- so, yeah.”

“And I thought,” he continues, rushing now, words rolling from his lips with apologetic speed in the wake of his confession, “I thought it seemed like, like this was…” He rolls his head to look down at Mariah, then back up to Romain, who’s scooting a little closer, holding Nathan’s hand tighter.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Romain says, cutting Nathan off. “I’m sorry. Since-- this whole time?”

Nathan laughs, but it doesn’t sound like humor at all to Mariah, and her stomach is a stone. “Honestly? I still...don’t know when it really...counts from. Like, when you guys think we. Started. Officially.”

Mariah sits up. This involves pushing off of Nathan’s chest -  _ again  _ \- and he huffs, again, and shoots a glare at her this time, like  _ ‘Seriously?’ _

Mariah is too busy feeling dismayed to feel apologetic.

“You’re-- you’re our boyfriend,” she says, declaring it, with all the determination of hitting her final pose, finally looking at the judges once she's done with it all, once it's out and she can't take it back.  _ This is how it is. This is me, on offer, on display. _

Romain takes a different approach. With Mariah sitting up, there's room for Romain to tip forward, bending at the waist and shoulder till he's looking straight down at Nathan, holding his uncertain gaze with a steadiness that is completely, perfectly  _ Romain _ . He gives Nathan a moment to see what he wants, to quietly decline if he's not interested, but Nathan's dark eyes search Romain's face and Mariah feels his breath swell in his chest, all the way down to his belly, diaphragm dropped, lungs full of anticipation. 

Romain dips down then, and maybe he should be being a little more careful of his back, but this is important, and Mariah's not going to interrupt it. He dips, supporting himself with one hand on the mattress, because the other's still tenderly clasped in Nathan's and not going anywhere. His arm flexes, muscle bunching, as he executes what would be the world's slowest, most tender one-armed pushup. But to make it a pushup you have to actually push  _ up  _ again, and Romain's in no rush for that. Nathan lifts his head from the pillow, mouth half-open, and all the anticipation in his lungs leaves him in a whimper as Romain takes his mouth for his own.

Nathan's fingers spasm around Romain's hand, grabbing around in need of an anchor, but he's already holding it, and Romain rumbles softly into the kiss, which he continues sinking into until the tension drops out of Nathan's neck and shoulders. He melts into Romain's kiss, in a way he doesn't for Mariah's. Romain's not even mostly over Nathan - that's Mariah, still straddling his thighs, hands on his belly, ankles hooked over his knees - but he's got Nathan's complete attention.

Honestly, Mariah can't even blame him. And as Romain thoroughly licks his way into and throughout Nathan's mouth, and Nathan makes a small soft sound of hunger beneath him, and his belly begins to tremble under Mariah's palms, she watches Romain's jaw working, the cords of his neck and shoulder flexing as he balances steadiness and strength with want. She waits to feel jealous. She feels Nathan's pulse quickening under her, and moves her hands to his hips, caressing the fluttering vein that stands out, completely unhidden beneath Nathan's four percent body fat, so that she can feel it clearer. And still the jealousy, the possessiveness, doesn't wake.

She knows she has it within her. She's felt it toward every girl who's caressed Romain's chest just a little too long under the pretense of congratulating him at galas. Every man he's sized up, and when she's caught him looking he's only spread his hands. ‘Only looking,’ he had reassured her, and it hadn't felt reassuring at all. Even toward their next-door-apartment neighbor, who knocked on their door in a scrubby pajama t-shirt and no bra, asking if she could borrow a cup of sugar. (Who  _ does _ that?)

But Romain's doing a lot more than looking right now, and she's completely fine. The past two weeks have changed them all, she thinks, and she never wants to go back. Never wants to unlearn what the three of them have hammered out, collaboratively, in the ending blaze of the previous year. Here in the earliest youth of this year, she only wants this: her two boys, with her, with each other. 

How could she - how could they - have overlooked it? Nathan's been operating at a disadvantage this entire time, never having been told for sure, only guessing and concluding. 

_ I think I need it spelled out for me, _ he's told them, often enough that she  _ knows _ , and now Mariah realizes she has only tossed a box of refrigerator alphabet magnets at him and just expected he'd understand.

_ I'll do better, _ she resolves. A new year's resolution forged in sunlight, not firework blasts, and one she intends to keep. 

Nathan’s lips pop softly when Romain finally releases him, and his chest is rising and falling with firm purpose, catching up for all the oxygen he’s short on. He’s flushed from cheeks to chest, belly fluttering. Straddling Nathan’s thighs, Mariah has an excellent vantage point to watch all of this, and the rising indication of his interest swelling to attention, front and center, and she's got a front row seat.

“You look good,” she says, and it comes out as a joke at first, too flip, too airy. She licks her lips and tries again, challenging her shyness, her timidity, to  _ shove it. _

“When he’s kissing you, Nate, I want to help,” she says, and  _ oh _ , saying the words out loud is a lot different than thinking them. Mariah feels flushed, a heat wave rolling over her skin, and Nathan jerks beneath her, startled by her speaking, startled by  _ what _ she’s saying.

Up to this point, it’s been all quiet kisses and caresses. Close embraces - sometimes very close - accompanying the emotion of reuniting after Nathan’s flight. Or the euphoria of new year’ kisses shared out there in the peaceful dark on the side of the bay, holding hands, teeth scraping lips, soft gasps against each other’s mouths with no-one to answer to but their three selves. Unspoken invitations, the nudge of one shoulder against another, a pointed glance. A semaphore of lifted chins, tipped heads, arched brows. All three of them, following the energy of the moment, assuming - in two of three cases - that it didn’t need to be said. What they feel for him is evident, isn’t it? Their actions speak for themselves, don’t they? They’ve ground out orgasms against each other’s hands and thighs, biting the meat of each other’s shoulder, or their own knuckles, to keep quiet, to keep secret.

Mariah coughs lightly, startled by how her chest has tightened up, how there’s suddenly not quite enough air in her lungs. Romain’s pulled back from Nate’s mouth - just a breath’s width, just far enough to let them both breathe, let them both speak if they need to. Nate’s belly is fluttering, and muscles over his flank and down to the top crests of his hips are quivering, pulling against each other in a bid to hold  _ still _ . He’s quiet, breathing shallow, and she can’t see from here but she’s certain he’s got his eyes screwed tightly shut. 

Above him, Romain’s lips are curled softly at the corner, pursed softly in the middle. His smile isn’t one of amusement - it’s one of sympathy, and Mariah remembers suddenly - it feels like it was forever ago - that he was wearing a similar expression frequently at their beginning, too. Holding hands and trying not to stomp on each other’s toes too badly, they stumbled around in their new relationship, mapping the contours of it, learning how to make their singles into a pair. 

There’s thought behind that smile, thought in the soft angles around Romain’s eyes as he moves his hand, strokes a gentle pattern across Nathan’s cheek and temple, back and forth, with one curled knuckle. Nathan’s still strung tight between them, quivering, not yet fully hard but pulled between too many emotional strains to get there. Too many tensions on him, and Mariah doesn’t know how to relax him free from them. How to  _ do _ this thing that they both so very deeply want to. Honestly, Mariah doesn’t know what she’s doing at  _ all _ , not really. She knows what she wants but not how to get there, and Nathan’s on the same page. Maybe that’s why they spent the last two weeks in this sweet, chaste stalemate, waiting for the other one -  _ one _ of the other ones - to make the first move. But Romain looks like he does know, and she’s  _ pretty  _ sure it’s not just because his incorrigible European charm never fully turns off.

“Nate,” Romain says, and Nate jerks to attention. He opens his eyes, finds Romain’s gaze, holds it. “I’m sorry. We should have talked. Not make smooching and humping do the talking for us. --What? What did I say?”

Because the tension is  _ gone _ . Nathan and Mariah are both laughing, Mariah high and jagged, Nate low and breathy and round. He brings one hand up to cover his eyes, still laughing, and with his other he waves Romain back, waves at Mariah to lift her weight, so his legs can slide out from beneath her own, and he can scoot himself up to sitting. He doesn’t adjust himself, Mariah notices, even though it’s probably uncomfortable.

“Smooching and humping,” Nathan repeats, deadpan, and now it’s Romain’s turn to be flustered.

“Don’t make fun,” he warns, brow drawing down, lowering like the first threat of storm clouds. But Nathan shakes his head on a soft laugh and a smile and pushes himself up to kiss Romain, light and reassuring.

“I’m not, I swear,” Nathan says, smiling at Romain, then at Mariah, and then laughing - best as Mariah can figure - at all of them, or at the whole situation.  “God, we’re a mess, huh?” he says, which Mariah thinks is overstating things a bit. 

“Hey, come on, Nate,” she says, but he shakes his head and looks at her with such calm vulnerability that whatever else she was going to say dries up before it reaches her brain.

“I just spent all our break freaking out about whether I’m something serious for you or -- hey, let me finish,” and he glowers at Mariah and Romain both, to keep either of them from voicing the objection they were both about to. 

“Whether I’m something serious, or whether we’re friends like normal and this was, all just, I don’t know, an exception. A temporary thing. Humoring me and my lonely ass. Fuck, I started to think I’d misinterpreted the whole thing, that last summer was- that I misunderstood somehow.”

“Misunderstood I shoved you up against the lockers and I kissed you silly and cried that you were leaving?” Romain’s trying hard not to sound  _ completely _ incredulous, and Mariah’s just going to keep her mouth shut, because laughing at Nathan is not going to help him feel better in any way.

Nathan rolls his eyes, rakes his hand into his hair. “Yeah, I know. Somehow. And I could have just, I dunno,  _ asked _ . Fuck.”

“You were scared,” Mariah says, and she hates how easily she can say that, that Nathan was scared. That  _ they _ scared Nathan. But it’s the truth.

Nate, for his part, doesn’t look thrilled by the concept either.

“Yeah, well, hey, we got it figured out, right?” he says, reassuringly perky, and she wants it to be that simple, but now - now she’s not sure. Now it feels like easy and natural and spontaneous are traps, and now do they have to talk this out, nail it all down? How do they figure out which parts they  _ haven’t _ figured out yet?

Mariah climbs off of Nathan’s shins, curling herself up into a ball, resting her chin on her knees. “I can’t believe I’m that  _ dumb _ ,” she grumbles, staring at her toes. 

“We mixed the signals,” Romain says, and his voice is gentle, reassuring. It’s familiar, even though this context, this misstep, is a brand new mistake in brand new territory, and hearing it, Mariah feels a little less lost. “It will be okay. We will not make the same mistake twice.”

“Yeah, all  _ new  _ mistakes. No recycled shit,” Nathan says, and Romain smacks his shoulder.

“Nate.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Nate,” Romain tries again, and this time, Nathan looks at Romain, and sees in his eyes that he’s already completely moved on to a new topic. 

“Oh,” Nathan says, and Mariah wants to kiss his idiot face.

Romain does, softly, brushing Nathan’s hair back from his brow with one big hand. Nathan leans into that touch, cheek to palm, and his eyes, fluttered shut for the kiss, are slow to open again.

“I love to kiss you,” Romain says, and Nathan flushes, ruddy all across his cheeks and ears. “Mariah loves it, too.”

“Ooh, yes, I do,” she says, and walks on her hands and knees up the bed, til she’s in range to demand a kiss of her own. Where Nathan goes soft, melting into each with Romain, he’s firm and warm with her, giving her kisses that  _ she _ can melt into. She sighs against his lips, and he nips her lower one, pulling back enough to smile at her from close range, and rub their noses together.

Romain’s staying near, close enough they’re all sharing the same air, warm puffs against each other’s cheeks and shy gazes. Nathan’s gaze flickers to Romain, then back to Mariah. A knowing little smile grows in his eyes, and his mouth curls to match. That’s always trouble. This time, it’s a small mischief: Nathan dips in for another kiss, cupping his palm to her cheek, and Mariah groans against his mouth as his tongue licks her lips open, flicking softly inside. He tips her head, guiding her to the perfect angle, and she follows happily. 

When Nathan pulls back, she thinks for a moment it’s for a breath of air, but suddenly Romain’s scruff and then his lips are claiming hers and she  _ moans _ , because her mind’s playing out the instant replay on wide angle: the way Nathan used one hand on her cheek to hold her, one hand at Romain’s nape to keep him near, to convey his intent. Did he glance over at Romain, speak with his gaze? Mariah envisions the depth of their eyes, pupils broad and dark, as Nathan’s eyes would have flicked open as he guided her to Romain.

Nathan’s still close, still breathing their air; she feels his temple bumping her own here and there, as Romain takes full control of the kiss with a strong hand on her nape. She paws blindly for Nathan’s hand, finds it on the second try, and squeezes til she’s sure his knuckles will creak. She wonders what he’s doing with his other hand - if it’s in Romain’s other hand. She finds the answer to this when too many fingers touch down on her chest, some broad and confident, guiding others: slimmer, cooler, hesitant. A familiar thumb brushes her nipple at the same moment that less familiar fingers timidly curl under the weight of her breast. Both catch her by surprise. She twitches, nipping Romain’s lip too hard, and pulls out of the kiss to look down at her own chest. Nathan’s hand, cradled in Romain’s, both cupped against the shallow swell of her breast.

There’s a lot of things Mariah wants to do in that moment, but the most pressing one wins out, and that’s to look to Nathan, search his eyes, make sure he’s okay. She finds him right where he belongs in his own head, shy but determined, and oh so smitten, and making no apologies. He stretches forward, kisses her softly, and when he pulls back she whimpers and tries to chase him.   
  
The complete impracticality of their position becomes pertinent to her now, as she thinks  _ more, more _ , and then realizes that knees and shins and at least two horribly unsustainable spine postures are between her and her dreams of full-body frottage. She’s trying to figure out how to word this, with Romain’s hand on her cheek, Nathan’s hand in hers, and both of them tickling her already hard nipple with their thumbs like they’re trying to make her  _ beg _ . Maybe they are, but why bother? She’s been ready since the start.

“You wanted a shower, yes?” Romain asks, kissing her temple, then her ear. His breath is thick and rich and rumbles straight down her spine. Mariah remembers.   
  
“Right,” she says, and her voice shakes in the middle. “You’re not really convincing me to get up and do that right now, babe.”

“But you should,” Nathan says, and Mariah feels Romain’s arm around her middle, pulling her back onto her haunches, giving Nathan room to stretch and get up off the bed, which he does. Every muscle in that torso ripples as he arches his back, one fist held in the other hand as he stretches both arms skyward. Then it’s the lateral stretches, one elbow in the other hand, twisting at the waist. 

Mariah’s response, if she had one, stalls out on her lips as the movements pull her completely in. She’s always liked how those stretches look  _ clothed _ . Undressed, it’s irresistible.

Nathan’s laterals are a cascading series of contour, shadow and light playing against his skin, from the middle of his back and around, sloping downward around his flank side, tumbling into the hard line boundary of his abs. From there, rippling like water, Mariah’s gaze flows down the rigid strength of him until it reaches the vee - that long groove from the outermost crest of the hipbone inward and down, chasing its way toward the center mass of Nathan’s body. The completion of it, the vee’s bottommost point, is still hidden from her view, and the abrupt horizontal barrier of the waistband of Nathan’s underwear draws her up short as abruptly as if she’d run nose-first into a glass door.

_ I can look, _ she tells herself, feeling embarrassed and really, truly not sure  _ why _ . There’s a flexion of muscle in her field of vision - Nathan shifts his weight from one leg to the other, and the cords -  _ ropes _ \- of muscle that shift and flex to accomplish such a simple motion are suddenly the most magnetic thing she’s ever seen. Mariah yanks her gaze up, too fast to trip over the serration of light across his abdomen, too fast to stumble over the swell of pectoral that’s way bigger than her own (and she’s not even jealous). Nathan’s watching her, and he’s  _ smirking _ , and that smirk seems to be holding steady, despite her intense examination, despite the flush that’s keeping his ears red as strawberries.

“I, uh. I should shower,” she says, not sure where this is going, not sure  _ why _ this is going where it’s going. Fifteen minutes ago she’d been prowling forward over him, determined to make him respond, to make him want her. Now, her heart’s running fast and her chest feels flushed, and all she can think, with the warm bulk of Romain pressed up behind her,  _ I want him. I want him so much. _

But before she can scamper away, Romain holds her in place with just a touch of his fingers to her wrist. “Wait,” he says, and kisses her cheek. Then he looks up, chin hooked over Mariah’s shoulder, and addresses Nathan.   
  
“Nate, you watch us, before, yes?” Nathan doesn’t break gaze with Mariah as he nods.

“I liked it.”

“You did not want to join?”

“Not-- not like that,” Nathan says, and now his gaze flickers, but only briefly, to include Romain in his apologetic smile. “Not that you guys aren’t...I mean. It’s, you’re.  _ Oof. _ ” He licks his lips, catches himself, bites his lip in embarrassment while Romain laughs.

“Just - not  _ yet _ ,” Nathan says, having found the word he was looking for the whole time, and Mariah’s gaze snaps back to his face. Of all the things she expected to hear, that wasn’t one of them.

“But you don’t...want to…”

Nathan glances to Romain again - it must be a guy thing, finding that much meaning and guidance in a single glance when she sometimes can’t make sense of them over a whole conversation - and back at her, and then down. Down, not at her own naked breasts or the crux of her and its cutely trimmed hair, but down at  _ himself _ . She follows where she’s guided, and takes in, really studies, the bulge of his cock, concealed only very barely under the thin, elastic fabric of his underwear.

“I want you,” Nathan says, and there’s a tremble in his voice, but only a small one. Only the frission of nerves from having said it, finally, having explicitly put words to the obvious and evident desire they’ve been dancing around since his plane landed, since they got him back into their arms.

“Both,” he adds, and Mariah looks up because his voice has the smile she loves in it, and she needs to see it, needs to see that humor and confidence and cockiness in his eyes. It’s all there, and more, and she twists around awkwardly so she can fix Romain with her own copy of the heated regard Nathan is giving him.

“Not in question,” Romain answers, dead certain, and Mariah shivers. Nathan does too, and has to swallow before he turns back to Mariah.

“Let’s just go take a shower, okay?” he says, holding his hand out for her, and she doesn’t understand, doesn’t know how  _ this  _ can be easy when trusting  _ girlfriend  _ and  _ boyfriend _ is so hard, but she’s tired of questioning the good, tired of second-guessing.

  
  


They’d all kissed, last night, snuggling against each other on the bed, creating safety and warmth and love between their six arms, at least two of which seemed doomed to be numb or all pins and needles at any given moment. They laughed about it, spitballing silly inventions to solve the problem - a mattress with a hole in it for the bottom arms was the winner. They followed the silliness of the conversation where it led them, hopping from tangent to random thought to curiosity to a wikipedia drift and from there further tangents, further meandering, deep into the night until they couldn’t begin to remember how the conversation had begun. Everyone got a turn at big spoon, and little, even Romain. And when the sky outside started to lighten, their kisses caught flame.

Nathan had stayed close, undressed to his underwear with them, but had stopped there. He’d held Mariah against him, and she’d rutted back against him, stroking her ass up the hard heat of him, revelling in the choked, shaking whispers he pressed against her skin, the way he gritted out her name between clenched teeth when he grabbed her hip, held her still, pushed her away and heaved breath to calm himself down. She’d assumed he needed to take care not to go off too early, but discovered, as Romain pulled her apart beneath him, that Nathan wasn’t intending to go off at all. 

Instead, he laid beside them as Romain mounted Mariah, holding her hand. His breath hissed sharply through his teeth as her body rolled, chin tipping up, spine arching off the mattress. He watched as they got themselves settled together, her heel in the small of Romain’s back, and contributed small touches of his own to the moment. Nathan stroked Mariah’s hair back from her face, scraped his nails lightly down Romain’s spine to make him shiver and his elbows buckle. He licked his lips, rapt, soaking it all in.

At some point, Nathan had scooted further away, curling one knee up against his chest, to give them the necessary distance to lose themselves. And after that point, Mariah lost track of Nathan entirely, as Romain consumed first her attention, then her senses.

When they were done, he was still sitting there, eyes dark, knee folded to his chest, breath shallow and coarse. The morning sun had bathed his face and he’d taken her hand, said,  _ ‘I’m here.’ _ Still deep in the middle of her afterglow, she hadn’t had the coherence to wonder whether he’d gotten off, or wanted to.

  
  


Now, Nathan’s standing before her, extending his hand to her, inviting her to shower with him. He’s hard in his underwear, which is holding his cock against the vee of his hip. Yet he’s paying it very nearly no attention, focused on her. His attention carries such weight that Mariah can’t help but notice herself, too: the way her skin’s beginning to prickle with goosebumps, the stiff tangle of her hair behind her ear, her overall sticky clamminess of sweatiness, and the acute stickiness, drying and uncomfortable, of a mess left several hours past cleanup.

“Go shower,” Romain says, nudging her toward the edge of the bed, toward Nathan. She stands, wobbling only slightly on legs that have sat for too long. Nathan takes her hand, and Mariah spins to look back at Romain, suddenly afraid.   
  
“I think we break him if starts with both at once,” Romain explains, pitching it as a fake-whisper, and over her shoulder, despite the context, Mariah is gratified to hear Nathan’s offended squawk. He’s so easy to tease.

“Oi. Low blow, man.”

“Are you sure?” Mariah asks Romain, undeterred, because Nate’s being cute and awkward but it’s not enough to distract her from the fear, the uncertainty, now that the moment is here. On some level, she’s exasperated with herself. They’ve talked it over, worked it out. They’re solid,  _ this _ is solid. It’s easy, a no-brainer --  _ in theory _ .

It was easy before, when they’d talked together about this as a two, before they’d first kissed Nate. Still easy as a two missing their third, while he was far away, and the distance made it all sound easier, simple as instinct, as hindbrain hunger.

But the reality is standing here naked, wanting, exposed. One hand in her boyfriend’s, one hand in her... _ new  _ boyfriend’s, Mariah feels shy, feels guilty, feels all sorts of things that make absolutely no sense in the face of Romain’s warm desire. Nathan’s icy hot smile. And yet the hesitation persists.

“I am,” Romain tells her, and he tugs her back by the hand he still holds for a rough, messy, quick kiss. He pulls away before she has a chance to get short of breath, squeezes her hand reassuringly. And lets go.

“Have fun,” he says, “I’m going to take a nap. I’m  _ exhausted  _ still. Can’t imagine why.”

Nathan laughs - it’s the dusty one, and Mariah’s heart swells. “Looked pretty easy to me,” he says, and only his hand twitching in hers tells Mariah how nervous he is about stepping out onto this new territory. It’s unmarked, and none of them have tried jokes like this before. None of them have had material with which to do so, before today. But the joke lands - Mariah flashes a grin at him, and turns again to add her grin to his own as they tease their ‘old man.’

“Guess you gotta struggle to keep up with us, huh?”

“ _ You _ do not have a back injury, you shit,” Romain says, flopping flat onto the mattress with a dramatic sigh. “Ungrateful…”

With Romain’s good-natured grumbling behind them, Nathan leads Mariah into the bathroom by the hand. He’s walking easy, calm, as if there’s no hurry, no rush in the world. It’s strangely intoxicating, given his state of arousal, to watch him turn on the taps, adjust the temperature, dig fluffy new towels and washcloths out of the linen cupboard. 

Mariah sits on the closed toilet lid, watching. Nathan’s fussing around with the anti-skid decals on the bottom of the shower, though she’s not sure why - they’re fine, right? Maybe it’s nervousness, she thinks, and she’s smiling, feeling less alone in her own nervousness, when he approaches with a hairbrush in hand. 

“Gotta wait till the water warms up, so. Turn around?”

“Oh. Yeah, I mean - it’s-” she swallows, and swivels, showing him her back.  He starts at the tips of her hair, working with quick and careful strokes, patiently detangling the knots and snarls that several hours of bed cuddles and a vigorous fuck will inevitably put in one’s hair.

“You’re good at this,” she says. Her voice is quieter than she expected, and it trails off into a happy murmur as Nathan rakes the brush over a section of her hair that he’s finished with, scalp to tip. The brushstroke tingles all the way down.

“I have sisters,” he says, just as quiet, and she can hear that he’s wearing the little ‘mild concentration’ frown, which is much softer than the crooked ‘studying tech’ frown he was wearing while bent over his guitar when she woke.  “It came up.”

Mariah laughs, soft, and Nathan tsks. “Hold still,” he says, but there’s no heat in his voice.

Minutes tick by. The bathroom warms by degrees. As steam finally rises around them in a billowing fog, Nathan strokes the brush through her hair from the crown of her head down the very tips, then again from her nape out to the ends. Her hair falls like a curtain over his fingers, spilling past the edge of his hand to swing free, and her scalp tingles so much she’s almost lightheaded. Nathan puts the brush down on the counter. It clicks against the porcelain, and Mariah feels like she’s waking up from a trance.

“C’mon,” Nathan says, and leads her into the shower by the hand. He’s naked now, she noticed, but - following some sort of impulse - she has made a point not to  _ look _ . She’s not really sure why, except that there’s a difference between nakedness and nudity, or maybe just that she wants to be sure she has permission.

In the shower, Nathan begins with his hands on her head, scooping the water over her hair, holding it back from running into her eyes. He’s fully focused on his task, and she doesn’t understand what’s motivating it. If they were meant to have fun, as Romain said, why’s Nathan leaning into the serving act?

“I can wash myself,” she says, grumping only slightly, and squints her eyes shut against the water and the heat. “Gimme the cloth.”

“I know you can,” Nathan says, and he’s laughing quietly. “But let me, okay?”

  
“Whaaat are you planning,” Mariah asks, prodding him in the side. Nathan jerks away, before she can turn it into a tickle attempt, and beams. His hair is sodden, pushed flat back from his brow, and water’s caught in his eyebrows, little clear beads of it.

“Nothing bad,” he says, and turns away to work some body wash into a lather on one of the washcloths. “I just want to take care of you in my own way.”

“Take care of?” But Mariah lets him turn her in place, and at the first scrub of the washcloth against her back, she groans and gives up. If he wants to make her feel this pampered, she is not going to be stupid enough to argue.

“Yeah,” Nathan says, and leaves it at that, working the washcloth from the small of her back, down her hip, over the curve of her butt, and down the other hip, following the muscle groups. He’s pressed close against her back, wet skin sticking to hers, and she feels the flex in his chest as he scrubs his way back up her thigh. Both pecs flex when he reaches forward, passing the washcloth from one hand to the other so he can scrub all the way across her belly, hipbone to hipbone and then up to her ribcage. He stops just below her breasts, grazing their undersides gently, focusing his scrubbing on the skin below, and between, at the bottom point of her sternum. From there he works his way around to her back again. He’s being very matter of fact, efficient without being perfunctory. It’s no more thorough or lingering a scrubbing than she usually gives herself. And yet the simple fact that he’s doing it, instead of her, changes the feel of it entirely. 

Nathan steps back, putting space between them again, and scoops her hair up in his palm, sweeping it forward over her shoulder. He lays it smooth with the help of the water spray, and she tips her face into it, savoring the wet heat on her jawline and neck while Nathan scrubs between her shoulder blades, tracing the angles of their bottommost points. He lingers there, on that spot that you just  _ can’t  _ reach on your own. 

“Fuuuuck,” Mariah groans, leaning back against his fist, closed around the washcloth, to increase the friction. “That feels so good.”

“Mmm.” Nathan kisses the slope of her shoulder, the one her hair isn’t covering, and continues on.

By the time he’s gotten all her normal parts clean - arms, wrists, flanks and back, nape and shoulders - and even her shins and calves, which he knelt down to reach, his head tipped gently against her thigh as he scrubbed all the way down to the ankles - Mariah’s feeling boneless and noodly, like her whole body is warm pudding. But like, in a good way.

“Nathan,” she singsongs, and he looks up. He’s kneeling in front of her, and her back’s turned to the spray. Her head is blocking most of it from falling on his face, and he’s able to look up, meeting her gaze inquisitively. He’s got the washcloth and the body wash in his hands, squeezing out another dose, and she’d wonder what there’s left to clean except the answer is really obvious, and really potentially awkward. What if she’s wrong? What if this really isn’t all just some elaborate foreplay?

Nathan solves the problem by handing her the sudsy cloth. “Here. There’s a couple spots I, uh, missed, so you do that while I kinda, yeah.” He gestures with the second washcloth at himself. “And then I’ll get back to spoiling you, okay?”

More befuddled than ever, but trusting him, she agrees.

He’s quick about scrubbing himself down. Mariah’s not sure whether that’s because he’s preoccupied with his plans for her, or because he didn’t have to wash off sex-gross, or just because he’s a boy. She’s hoping it’s one of the former two. She’s got her back turned, working her way across her armpits and frustration-scrubbing the spot on her chest that just won’t stop breaking out no matter what she tries, when his hands descend on the top of her head with a dollop of cool shampoo. She yelps.

“Gah!”

“Distracted?” he asks, digging his fingertips under the thick sheet of water holding down her hair, chunking it out into sections that the suds can permeate. “What’re you thinking about?” 

“Why you’re doing this for me,” she answers. There doesn’t seem to be any point to avoiding it.

“Because I want to,” he answers, and she closes her eyes, tips her face into the spray to wash suds out of he eyes, and sighs.

“Seems too simple.”

“What’s not simple about it?” Nathan pulls her back, so her head’s out of the spray. The water beats down on her chest, making her feel like her heartbeat’s going to trip, while he spans the whole of her skull between the arches of his fingers. He scrubs gently, working his way from root out to the length, and then weaves his fingers back in from a slightly different angle, careful not to tangle her hair as he massages the scalp below. It’s careful, thorough, and turning her knees to jelly.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she protests. “You didn’t want to have sex -- and no, wait, that’s  _ fine _ , I’m not saying you have to, I just-- Don’t understand, because--”

“Because I’m a guy?” Nathan’s chuckle is dry and not very amused. “Yeah, I’m...kinda trying to figure that out myself, too. It’s not that I don’t find you sexy. Or Romain.” He pauses, and a shudder runs through him. “Cause.  _ Jesus _ .”

Mariah groans her agreement, and Nathan laughs. “Yeah, so it’s not-- It’s not that. I’m not, like, I’m not ace. I don’t think.”

“Then what is it?” She turns, shampoo notwithstanding, to look at him. He’s got his hands up, and with the suds all over them it looks like she’s caught him red-handed in the middle of some kind of mischief. Well. Soap-handed.

“I don’t know,” Nathan says, and reaches forward, over her shoulders, to rinse off his hands, and her hair, together. The water splashes around, disrupted by his hands and the fall of her hair. Droplets that wouldn’t otherwise feel cool strike her skin randomly, deflected from the rest of the spray, and she shivers. “I know you’re super hot. Romain’s super hot. A lot of people are super hot, honestly.” 

Mariah opens her mouth, and Nathan glares at her to shut it. “We are not doing that right now. Ask me about other hot people when we’re not in the shower, okay?” 

He sighs, pulling his arms back, now that her hair and his hands are clean, and selects a conditioner from the range of options standing on the shelf of the shower wall. Palm full of a double pump of a purple creamy concoction, he tugs Mariah forward, till she’s out of the spray, and begins working it into her hair starting at the tips.

“I just...I don’t want to fuck everything that’s sexy, okay? I don’t...I dunno, I definitely  _ want  _ to have sex, but like...It’s not what I want most.”

Mariah is watching his eyes, captivated, fascinated. She has the distant thought that he sounds like he’s said this before, like he’s got a tiny bit of practice with this speech. She thinks that this morning, maybe Romain really wasn't sleeping as deeply as she had assumed. “Then...what?”

“I want you to feel good. I want with every bit of me to make you-- to--” He blushes, starting at the tips of his ears and going down, and gives up on saying it. They both know. 

“To make you feel good. Just thinking about that, it’s like thinking about getting myself off. I want it just as much.”

This is not what she’d expected. Mariah swallows, licks her lips. They taste like water, and so does Nathan’s cheek when she leans forward to kiss it. His lips, too, taste like  _ clean _ , and not entirely like himself. But inside his mouth, his tongue is still the right flavor, and she sighs into it, leaning forward and grabbing his hips for balance, pulling them against her own.

Nathan groans into her mouth, nipping her lip, and pecks at her lips with soft, close-lipped kisses until she backs off enough that he can speak. “Riah, don’t knock me over.” He smiles, with a little headshake, making sure she knows he’s not mad. “Just let me get a wall behind me before you do that, okay?”

Mariah feels a hot curl in her belly and dives for it, wanting connection, wanting touch, wanting  _ Nathan _ . “So... I  _ can  _ do that, as soon as I back you up against a wall, is what you’re saying,” she says, laying on the cheese.

“Sure, if you want,” he answers, playing cool, and she’s  _ so _ not going to let him bait her like that.

“Why? Do you have a better idea?” she asks, and immediately realizes she misunderstood which trap he was setting. Nathan’s got his chin up, eyes molten, lips so delicately and softly curled in affection for her that she nearly chokes. “Oh. You do.”

“I think so,” he says. “Come here. You have to let that conditioner set for at least five minutes before you rinse it.”

“I never bother,” she says, shrugging. “Did you actually read the bottle?”

“Yes, and you should too,” he says. “They’re instructions for a reason.”

Mariah rolls her eyes, biting down her grin. “Ohhh. I forgot who I was talking to for a minute. Mr Uptight.”

“I don’t think so,” Nathan says, feigning cluelessness. “Who’s that?”

“Oh my god. Why are you even trying that line on me.”

“C’mere, Riah,” he says again, and this time he guides her by the wrist. He’s stepped to the side now, out of the water’s spray, setting his back against the cool tile wall to the right of the bottle shelf, where the tile is flat and smooth and there’s a vertical railing for safety mounted on the wall. He pulls her close, turning her in his arms till her back is pressed to his front. He pushes her hair forward, over her shoulder. It sticks to her breasts, which are already pebbling with goosebumps.

“It’s cold, Nate,” she grumps, and that low knot of heat in her gut flips over when he just  _ snickers _ .

“Mmm-hmm,” is all he says, and he reaches past her shoulder to grab the handheld shower wand.

Several things click into place in her brain at once. One, she’s dating an incubus. Possibly two of them, but definitely this one. Two, incubi can apparently be givers? Three, she’s going to need that rail.

“You’re kidding,” she says, but her breath is shallow and there’s no strength behind the words.

Nathan sweeps the spray smoothly back and forth, making sure to cover all of their skin, and the water warms them everywhere it hits, from shoulder to knee, soothing the shivers that had already begun. Meanwhile, Mariah’s heart is in her throat, and Nathan’s is a steady drumbeat against her spine.

Nathan shifts his grip on the wand’s handle. There’s a button there, which he presses. The spray changes setting, from wide wash to a narrower flow. The restriction raises the pressure of the spray, and the spot it’s currently aimed at, on Mariah’s inner thigh, thrums under the satisfying beat of liquid massage.

In contrast to the affectedly suave playfulness of just moments prior, Nathan’s voice is careful, gently precise, when he speaks, and he does so almost directly into her ear. 

“Why, do you want me to be?”

“ _ No, _ ” Mariah breathes, with enough strength that it could be a cuss.  _ Consent granted, consent  _ **_completely_ ** _ granted. _

Nathan kisses her cheek and turns his wrist. The water flow moves, drumming its way from her inner thigh up and center, and even knowing it’s coming, Mariah still inhales sharply enough that there’s  _ sound _ behind the air as she gasps for breath. Nathan’s just spent the last forty minutes relaxing her, coaxing her, pleasuring every part of her body  _ other _ than her clit, so it shouldn’t surprise her to realize that she was already so hungry, so ready for him.    
  
_ It makes for an easy target,  _ she thinks, dizzily, hands flying out to the sides for grounding. Her palms smack the tile, smarting, and she scrabbles with her right hand until tile gives way to metal rail.

“Nate,” she pants, and her unsteady breath makes the syllable waver. The shower steam is hot in her mouth, in her nose, as she breathes deeply for air, pulling from her diaphragm.

Just like that, the touch is gone. She’s moved enough that it’s off-target, close but oh so definitely not quite, and she groans, frustrated. Nathan’s right there with her, though, because his left arm is wrapping around her, low on her hip, palm flat and fingers loosely curved. He cups his hand over her mound, fingertips touching down, so lightly, on the soft slick folds of her labia. Mariah shudders.

“May I?” he murmurs, and she nods, frantic, biting her lower lip. She doesn’t release it until his index and middle finger have spread in a V, stroking gently up, spreading her open as he goes. Until his right wrist, braced on her hip for stability, twists, turning the wand’s spray inward, back to where she needs it. The rolling drumbeat of it is back, working her over, and it’s pins and needles all over her skin as the rolling feeling builds.

At some point, Mariah notices, she’s moved her hands from the wall. One’s on the railing, one’s on the back of Nathan’s neck. At some point, she’s started gasping, soft open-mouthed noises of enjoyment, with every breath she draws.  At some point, her toes have started to curl, and the scrape of the shower floor against her knuckles reminds her to open them out again, that she needs to not slip and fall.

_ That’s why he was fussing with the floor, _ she thinks. She watches the thought float by, unmoored, like all the rest of her thoughts, drifting off into the steamy clouds filling her head.

Nathan shifts his left hand. With fourth finger and index, he strokes her lips back, holds them delicately back. With his middle, he reaches down, stroking the underside of her clit, flicking its tip, pressing up underneath it to hold it up, hold it out, so the water can reach her more easily. Mariah keens, tumbling through sensations, speeding quickly past.  _ Enough _ turns into  _ too much,  _ but there’s no stopping; Nathan and the water are pulling her onward, through to  _ just right _ all over again. 

She feels red, swollen, tender as a peach. But where Nathan’s fingers are digging in, where the water is pulling her, roiling, toward orgasm, nothing but sweet juice runs down. Her stomach quivers, muscles trembling with the effort of restraining effort. Her body is telling her push, more, up,  _ please _ , and she aches to give it everything it wants, but she can’t string a thought together for long enough to figure out  _ how _ .

She feels Nathan’s mouth on her shoulder. In the middle distance between the ball of her shoulder and the column of her neck, along those sloped planes of skin, he presses kiss after kiss, suckling, licking, nipping. Mariah feels a flash, brief, of regret for this position - there’s no way they can kiss without torquing something quite badly, or losing their balance, or both. And she wants to - no,  _ needs _ \- to kiss Nathan for this. Needs him to have everything he’s giving her, and more.

_ I love him. _

Her clit twitches, her hips twitch, her core contracts as she tries, reflexive, to thrust up into the water’s touch.  _ Nathan’s  _ touch. Even as she does, she’s thinking  _ no, fuck _ , there it goes again, I’m out of alignment again. 

But her breath hitches, near shreds itself open across a croaked gasp of shock and need and relief, as the sensation  _ doesn’t stop. _ Nathan has curled forward with her, pressed tight to her back as if he’s riding out her writhing. No - he’s riding her  _ through _ it: chin hooked over her shoulder, wrists held tight against her hip bones, and the muscles of his forearms standing out in greater relief where he’s holding them tense in order not to lose that grip, not to shift from that perfect place.

Mariah gasps, gasps, and whines. It’s a sort of keening noise, just this side of a sob, and Nathan’s voice is dark and satisfied as he murmurs nonsense into her skin, sealing the words there with kisses. She’s close. So close.

Her knees buckle, and the only thing keeping her upright is his forearm pressed tight against her abs, her claw-fingered grip on the back of his neck, and the driving thrum of the water, beating against her, drumming her senseless. Everything goes double, then dark, then flickers back into unfocus around her, but it’s all so distant, so irrelevant, and she’s shaking, crumbling in his arms, spreading her thighs and pressing down and one of her hands has spanned the back of Nathan’s own, holding the shower wand right where it is.   _ Don't move don't move a millimeter, don’t go don’t go  _ **_anywhere_ ** , she wants to hiss at him, at the water itself or her labia or any of the multifold possible ways this feeling could be interrupted. But her voice is long gone, and there’s no interrupting this now.

She comes back to herself in pieces. 

When there’s enough of her to form a thought, she finds Nathan holding her. She's draped over him who’s draped against the shower wall. He’s holding her shoulders back with one forearm, banded across. It’s to keep her from slumping forward and away from him, she supposes, and she rolls her head to one side, finding his ear and neck. She kisses them. The shower wand is still in his right hand, washing its broad soft rain across them both, and his left is splayed flat and heavy, low across her belly. It’s a grip laden with need but no possessiveness. Mariah kisses his neck again, and he lifts his chin off of her shoulder, summoning strength back into his neck to raise his head. 

Nathan turns, taking in her expression, her dizzy smile. The angle is all kinds of awkward, but they kiss anyway, too exhausted to need anything more than connection and reassurance from their clumsy meeting of lips. She runs out of energy quickly, and her head droops down again while she thinks, or tries to.

“Nate,” she starts, because that seems like a good starting point. “Nate, that…”

He kisses the side of her neck, eyes squeezed shut. Mariah feels  _ me too  _ and  _ I know  _ and  _ holy shit _ in that kiss, and she shudders, and finally gives up on her knees. She melts out of Nathan’s arms, slowly, coming to rest with a wet plop in a pile of limbs on the shower floor. Nathan’s not far behind, actually, which surprises her; he skids down the wall, folding himself down to sit beside her, but instead of holding his knees to his chest this time, he splays them, and with both hands pulls Mariah into his lap.

“Oh my god,” he breathes, after five minutes or maybe ten, and remembers, belatedly, to turn off the shower. The water squeaks off, leaving them in sudden silence, and Mariah presses her cheek to his chest and listens to his heart thundering along while she waits for her legs, or her brain, or pretty much anything, to go back to normal function.

“Yeah,” she mumbles.

“Good...good idea, huh?” he manages, and she laughs, bonking his chest with her head since her arms are still made of rubber and won’t lift up at all.

“The best.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


epilogue:

  
  


“Can you stand?” Nathan sounds like he’s barely conscious.

Mariah laughs, shaky, gutted. “No way.”

“Hey, Romain?” Nathan lifts his voice, calling into the bedroom, and Mariah feels a stab of - anxiety? Embarrassment? Nathan kisses her nape, and soothes her.

“Did you have fun?” Romain calls back, and Mariah can tell from the sound of his voice that he’s still lying on the bed where they left him, maybe scrolling his phone. Has he even looked up?  The anxiety evaporates faster than it arrived.

“Yeah, but I think I broke her,” Nathan calls back, somehow managing to sound beseeching and smug at the same time.

“I’m coming,” Romain laughs, and the bed creaks. A few moments later he pokes his head in the bathroom door, then into the shower, and he grins, beaming down at them in their little crumpled pile of limbs.

“Looks like I was last,” he murmurs. Mariah didn’t think she had the energy to blush, but he’s just proved her wrong.

“Shut up and help me up,” she mutters, pouting at her very tall, very strong, very mean boyfriend.

“Oui, oui.”

**Author's Note:**

> this fic would not be half as polished or grammatically enjoyable if not for the quick and helpful beta services of SecretPeach and rainflash. please check out their works as well, they're fabulous.
> 
> come find me on twitter or discord. and if you'd like to join our figure skating fanfic writing server, KSSC, send me a pm!
> 
> i'm capra, and thank you for reading.


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